sábado, 13 de enero de 2018

Out of touch: Nancy Pelosi says billions in tax cuts for Americans are ‘crumbs’

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the president’s tax cuts would mean “Armageddon” turned out to be a lie, so the multimillionaire California Democrat is now demeaning the multi-billion dollar cuts as “crumbs.”

Tell that to the millions of everyday Americans who already received pay raises and four-figure bonuses. Better yet, wait till February to tell them, after payroll tax cuts begin kicking in.

Raises and bonuses

Walmart joined a growing list of companies on Thursday that are passing along the economic benefits of tax reform to employees, but Mrs. Pelosi is not impressed. She told reporters during her weekly press briefing that Walmart, Southwest Airlines and other companies are merely looking for good press.

“A number of companies are attributing the tax bill for being able to give higher wages to their employees as well as give a number of bonuses to their employees. How do you respond to that?” asked one reporter during Pelosi’s weekly press conference.

Pelosi at first dismissed the notion that the tax cuts had anything to do with some of the company-issued bonuses. She said:

One of the bonuses was already in a union contract, and then they added a little more money to that. That same firm just told their employees that they’re going to be laying off 1500 people.

Then the former House speaker described the remaining bonuses as mere pittances.

“In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic, it’s so pathetic,” she said.

The $40 “victory”

As opposed to the four-figure bonuses corporate America was giving employees, Pelosi described legislation extending a $40 payroll tax cut in 2011 as a “victory for all Americans,” and attributed the accomplishment to “Obama’s leadership.”

“One hundred sixty million Americans will continue to receive their payroll tax cut — nearly $40 per paycheck in the pockets of the average family. I salute the work of the unified House Democratic caucus on behalf of the American people,” Pelosi said in a 2011 statement.

As Nancy Stephens Jennings posted on Facebook, “Please tell us about the huge tax cuts you all made while Obama was president for 8 years. I recall a $40 tax cut and you crowed about how much it would mean to families. That wasn’t even a crumb.”

Armageddon, greed

“The debate on health care is life, death. This is Armageddon,” she said. “This is a very big deal, because you know why? There’s really a very hard way to come back from this.”

The world still exists, and no one has died as a result of the legislation. So Pelosi had to change her approach.

In a pre-Christmas floor speech, Pelosi compared the tax reform package to the Charles Dickens favorite, A Christmas Carol. She opined that the legislation may hurt children like the Dickens character, Tiny Tim, who she compared to an 11-year-old boy named Simon, who is stricken with a rare disease.

“Unfortunately, this story as of today does not have the same kind of happy ending as A Christmas Carol, but this story is not over,” Pelosi told fellow lawmakers.

“Like Tiny Tim, Simon and his family may find their future in danger because of the greed of those with power, the cruelty that is in the heart of the tax scam.”

As far as we know, Simon is still living. If he died as a result of the tax cuts, Pelosi would have told us.

So lacking that, Pelosi’s only remaining strategy is to characterize the tax cuts, pay raises and bonuses as mere “crumbs.” Pathetic.

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